The Best, Worst, and Most Empowering Moments of the 2018 Golden Globes

The Golden Globes hold the unique, burdensome, and always entertainingly precarious distinction of being the first major awards show of each year. This is usually a jovial affair, mixing big and small screen actors at intimate round tables with champagne. The stars laugh and pretend not to be offended by the occasional coarse joke. The camera often finds—really, seeks out—a meme-able reaction. And the largely unknown foreign body of voters bestows trophies that celebrate the last 12 months of television and movies, all while setting the tone for the upcoming, more serious red carpet galas; namely, providing a blueprint for the Oscar conversation over the next two months.

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But in light of the stirring sexual harassment and assault revelations over the last several months, the 75th version of this besotted night had a thicker air of seriousness, solemnity, and solidarity. Women walked the red carpet adorned in black (they didn’t answer questions about designers), their male peers mostly followed suit, and host Seth Meyers navigated a tricky setting with relative comedic ease—and occasional genius—without pulling punches.

For the “ladies and remaining gentlemen” in the room, and for those who watched at home, here were some of the best, worst, and memorable moments from a mostly placid, nervous, and occasionally empowering night.

Best Speech

Let’s be real: this was Oprah’s night. The impact of the Time’s Up movement was felt throughout most of the telecast over various acceptance speeches and the sartorial color scheme, but it didn’t find its gravity and sense of strength until Oprah Winfrey began to speak. She made history becoming the first black woman to win the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award and she used her platform in an inspiring, uplifting and unifying way. She invoked the feelings she had watching Sidney Poitier winning his Academy Award for Lilies of the Field in 1964, told the story of justice-warrior Recy Taylor (who just recently passed away), lauded the role of the press and finished with a rousing call to action.

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“For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up,” she said. For a while, the “Oprah for President” jokes didn’t feel so much like jokes. The entire crowd stood, applauding, welling up with emotion, in constant awe of a woman that has captivated so many for so long. “A new day is on the horizon.”

Best Takedown

If it was unfair for anyone to follow Winfrey’s impassioned speech, nobody told Natalie Portman. Introducing the directing award beside Ron Howard, she interjected with an off-script, “Here are the all-male nominees…” This was Keegan-Michael Key’s anger translator, a sharp jab and specific indictment of Hollywood’s dearth of women directors, the bite to Winfrey’s bark.

Best Scripted Takedown

It didn’t have the Portman punch, or its short improvisational gusto, but Jessica Chastain took her own shot at inequality Sunday night presenting with Chris Hemsworth. “I am so happy to announce that the winner of this category will also receive the 23 percent of her salary that went missing in the wage gap,” she said. “It’s not a problem as we’ve saved so much money kicking people out of Hollywood this year.”

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Worst Theatrics

It’s impractical to expect too much from the Globes, but the atmosphere of the room didn’t lend itself to any wacky cameos, funny presenting moments, drunken speeches or creative decisions. The show became stale and at times sullen, needing sparks of energy that only came from occasional women’s speeches. In other words, it was a mostly mechanical, methodical show that felt more like the Academy Awards in pace and structure than the loose casualness that previous telecasts have boasted before it.

Best Monologue Joke

Meyers disappeared from the show rather quickly after his monologue—“host” should just be called “opener” these days—but handled the duties of addressing the current climate with just the right kind of humor, including just one Harvey Weinstein joke. Before he finished by remembering all those who work behind the scenes in the industry—even the super-connected fictional PA Jeremy Paramount—arguably his biggest laugh came at the expense of Donald Trump, without even using his name. “I’m not even the most powerful Seth in the room tonight,” Meyers said. “Hey, remember when [Seth Rogen] was the guy making trouble with North Korea? Remember that? Simpler times.”

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Worst Ending

The show closed with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri winning Best Picture for a Drama. The movie is messy and the politics messier, and its victory felt at odds with the spirit of the night. Seconds later Sam Rockwell, already a supporting actor winner, gave an awkward shoutout to his agent before the group was herded off stage.

Worst Absence

One of the most inexplicable and wonderful celebrity kissing photos to emerge in recent weeks, one which set the internet’s temperature to scalding, was a shot of Laura Dern with ex-NBA star Baron Davis. The entertainment and sports worlds collided with pure confusion and adoration. Sadly, as Dern accepted her supporting acting award for Big Little Lies, Davis was neither seen nor mentioned, keeping this fascinating courtship a mystery for a little longer.

Best Blush

Meyers was on the verge of making a joke about The Post, introducing it as a six-time nominee and predictable winner, when a stagehand rushed onto the stage with the punchline: six Golden Globe trophies. Cut to director Steven Spielberg, who looked beside himself, slightly embarrassed with hands over his rosy cheeks. It was truly the face of a man so used to winning. The joke became cruel by the end of the night when The Post went home with nothing.

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Best Name Change

It’s 2018, so the show finally said goodbye to “Miss and Mr. Golden Globe” and introduced the first-ever “Golden Globes Ambassador.” This year that went to Dwayne Johnson’s daughter, Simone Garcia Johnson, who, along with the ceremonial duties of handing out awards Sunday, will engage in the Hollywood Foreign Press’s philanthropic efforts. Said her father: “Charitable causes are great. That’s why I let Kevin Hart be in all my movies.”

Weirdest Rejection

This was not exactly the best awards show for creepy men to jump on stage (to be fair, it never is). But there was Tommy Wiseau, oversized sunglasses on, hopping onto the Globes stage, nearly taking the microphone from James Franco in the middle of his Best Actor speech for The Disaster Artist. Franco gave him the Mutumbo finger just in time, but the content of his speech was already dulled by Wiseau’s presence. This strange, long-haired man, who believed he would never make it to an awards show like this, finally did so in the most ironic of ways. “Oh, hi everyone,” he would have likely said.

Best Walk-Up Song

Walk-up songs to the stage can often be the most underrated aspect of awards shows. Because Big Little Lies earned four different wins, Michael Kiwanuka’s “Cold Little Heart” played four different times. Though the original song was substituted for a distilled instrumental version, the musical moments brought us back to the HBO show’s wonderful opening montage, to Monterey, to waves and sand, to petty arguments and precocious kids curating playlists in the car.

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Best Prop

As Tonya Harding’s mother in I, Tonya, Allison Janney gives more affection to the pet parakeet she keeps on her shoulder than to her own daughter. While Janney couldn’t fly out the real one—named Little Man, apparently living in Smyrna, Georgia—she attached a fake one to her dress while she presented. Janney would soon after win a best supporting actress award for the movie. No doubt Little Man was chirping for her.

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Best Cheek-to-Cheek Moment

As Barbra Streisand advocated for more women directors in Hollywood (and tried to seriously understand how she’s the only woman to win a directing award), NBC cut to Greta Gerwig, who was disappointingly left out of the director nominations (her wonderful movie Lady Bird won Best Picture in the comedy category, so she still had a good night). Pressing her cheek to Gerwig’s was Saoirse Ronan, the movie’s titular character, who also won in the best actress category. The camera caught such an earnest, sweet moment, somehow capturing the bond and spirit of the movie itself.

Most Musical Announcers

Kelly Clarkson and Keith Urban shared the stage, united in their American Idol pasts, and added some needed color to the Best Song category by singing in harmony, “And the Golden Globe goes to…”

Realest Admission

“Well, I have a few things to say,” said Frances McDormand, accepting her Best Actress in a Drama award. After promising to buy some tequila for her fellow nominees, McDormand thanked the Hollywood Foreign Press with the caveat that she still really doesn’t know who the voters are. However, she conceded, “they managed to elect a female president, I’m just saying.”

Did they just bleep "Fox Searchlight" because they thought Frances McDormand said "Fuck Searchlight"?

Worst Censorship

NBC preemptively bleeped several parts of McDormand’s speech, including muting her praise of Fox Searchlight because Fox sort of sounds like…well? But considering her character’s mouth in Three Billboards, it must have seemed like a necessary risk to take.

Best Shoutout

Aziz Ansari mostly stuttered over trying to remember who to thank for his Best Actor award until he realized where some of Master of None Season 2 took place. “I want to thank Italy for all the amazing food we ate,” he said, echoing the sentiment of everyone who has ever eaten in Italy.

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Best Presenter

Kirk Douglas is 101 years old and still in good enough shape to wheel himself onto the Globes stage. Enough said.

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Worst Omissions

Not a single award went to Get Out, Call Me By Your Name, Dunkirk, or The Post. This is a matter of frustrating categorizing (Get Out could easily be categorized as a drama) and foreign voters that might believe Three Billboards most accurately depicts today’s American politics. This is unlikely to stand in the Oscars—there are much more technical awards that will give merit to Christopher Nolan, Luca Guadagnino, and Spielberg—and enough time for voters to redeem Jordan Peele from being omitted in the Globes’ best directing pool. It’s strange to think of some of these movies as underdogs but equally exciting to see how their Oscar campaigns compete down the stretch.

Best Synergy

No television series resonated with the current times quite like The Handmaids Tale, and Elizabeth Moss, upon winning a Best Actress award for the Hulu series, couldn’t help but quote Margaret Atwood, the source material’s author. “We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edge of print,” she quoted Atwood, later adding herself, “We no longer live in the gaps between the stories. We are the story in print, and we are writing the story ourselves.”

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